Pentagon: Violence In Iraq Rising

New Report Says Security Problems Are Growing More Complex

(CBS/AP) 
Despite the everyday chaos and bloodshed, help for Iraqis is coming from an unlikely American source.

A generation after the jungle, some Vietnam vets are seeking redemption in the desert. In Baghdad, Jack Holly, a former Marines 2nd Lt., has a daunting job. Get Iraqis whatever they need, from socks to tanks. He calls himself "the concierge of the battlefield."

"Yeah, I'm a nation builder. And I'm proud of it," Holly tells CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.

However, attacks on his truck convoys are a daily menace. More than 100 of his people have been killed.

In response to the Pentagon's report Friday, the Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada, said it showed the Bush administration is "increasingly disconnected from the facts on the ground in Iraq."

"It is time for a new direction to end the war in Iraq, win the war on terror, and give the American people the real security they deserve," Reid said.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who recently returned from a visit to Iraq, said the report squared with what he saw there.

"Iraq is tipping toward civil war," Reed said.

Col. Thomas Vail, commander of a 101st Airborne brigade operating in the mostly Shiite areas of eastern Baghdad, told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday that an intensified effort to root out insurgents and quell sectarian violence in the capital is bearing fruit, leading to a decrease in sectarian murders in recent days.

"They understand a big stick," he said, referring to a bigger U.S. and Iraqi force confronting militias and others responsible for violence like the barrage of coordinated attacks across eastern Baghdad on Thursday. Iraqi police said they killed at least 64 people and wounded more than 286 within a half hour.

Peter Rodman, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, in a separate session with reporters, said that despite progress this summer in reviving the Iraqi economy, raising electricity production and increasing the number of trained Iraqi troops, security conditions have deteriorated.

The report covered the period since the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki was seated May 20.

From that date through Aug. 11, the average number of attacks per week against Americans and Iraqis was 792, up 24 percent from the previous period of Feb. 11 to May 19. The 792 figure was the highest for any counting period since the war began. The previous high was 641 in the Feb. 11 to May 19 period.

"The last quarter, as you know has been rough," Rodman said. "The levels of violence are up and the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing."

That assessment was tempered by a degree of optimism that the Iraqi government — with support from U.S. troops — will succeed in quelling the sectarian strife.

Optimism among ordinary Iraqis, however, has declined, the 63-page report said.

When asked if they believe "things will be better" in the future, the percentage of Iraqis responding positively has dropped over the past year — whether they were asked to look ahead six months, one year or five years — according to polling data cited in the report.

"The security situation is currently at its most complex state since the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom," the report said, using the U.S. military's name for the war that was launched in March 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.

One of the most celebrated events during the period on which Friday's report was based was the killing of the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The report said that although this was a major success, al Qaeda remained a threat because of its "resilient, semiautonomous cellular structure."